thessalian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thessalian) wrote2006-04-09 09:03 pm
thessalian) wrote2006-04-09 09:03 pm
Entry tags:
Honestly, you had to be there
So they arrived at the hideously decorated old hotel, ate (Michelle and Skank argued over eating the sapient; Skank wound up wearing piping hot casserole of some description and Michelle went feral. Everyone was incredibly tired and sulky, actually) and then Skank went to turn the boiler etc on so they could have some heat in there. In the process of this, the group found out two things; first, the place was haunted. Hugely, screamingly haunted. Packed to the rafters with ghosts, some of whom were utter kleptomaniacs. The second thing was that a corax named Ralph was in the building, nursing a broken wing. He now has a whole lot of information about the end of the world and what can be done to save it, which he is now spreading amongst his kin and anyone else who'll listen, and has informed the party that the ratkin were responsible for the Wyrm being free. Apparently it was an accident -- their whole "gnaw the Web until it collapses" thing taken far too seriously. Either way, I'm not seeing any ratkin they may wind up meeting getting a good reception from the party...
After being woken up by Molly-cast of what she experienced in Box 'O Sensory Deprivation and Time-Fucky, most everyone went back to sleep if they could. Unfortunately, John was insulting the hotel wraiths ("They can't possibly hear us! They don't have ears!") and they tied him to the bed and tried to smother him. Then Peter walked in while Lucius was trying to pry the pillow off John's face and, because the ghost vanished before Peter got to activate his Spirit sight, it looked for all the world like Lucius was trying to smother John. This story got spread around and generally things went a bit to Hades.
The following morning, Lucius went downstairs to do sword kata in the lobby, but of course Molly was in there, freaked out at the sight of fast-moving cutlery and Lucius vacated to the dining room upstairs. When Skank heard Molly scream, eventually got downstairs and found Molly missing. She was found curled up in the cellar with a stab wound to the chest. Everyone pinned it on Lucius because not only did they know about the smothering incident, but Lucius had admitted the smothering incident (albeit without all due seriousness) and also had to admit to psychotic episodes when he didn't remember causing all sorts of grievous harm to someone. Matters were complicated by the fact that Lucius had been using Romulus' katana at the time, probably due to kleptomaniac ghosts. The suspects were essentially Lucius, ghosts or Remus through the twin-bond deal he has going with Romulus. Then, of course, there was the problem that Lucius got possessed by something and wound up stabbing John in the back with his katana and then trying to follow through with wakizashi-inflicted beheading. He got stopped by Skank and Peter, thankfully, and then they hog-tied Lucius and insisted that no one do anything alone. This got scuppered by Peter and Skank having to go off and collect Romulus, Michelle going to check on Molly and John being possessed to just the degree of slapping Lucius repeatedly in the face, which was partially written off as revenge for the stabbing but it did occur to people that they knew nothing about this John Grey character or his abilities. Oddly, the only person who was really exempt from suspicion at this point was Colum, because he was snowed in, trapped in the Battle Bus.
So Skank went to check on people at the Gallery. The Gallery, as he found when he brought a torch into the place, was covered with slime and very, very dark. The Euthanatos corridor was blocked by tentacular yick, the Akashic wing was clean but obviously unused (and most of the Akashics appeared to be off-plane), what he could see of the Cult of Ecstasy wing was larger than it should have been given that there are only two left, and in the cabal's personal wing of the gallery was a short, pudgy, bald, crazed-eyed monk person who didn't flinch at Forces-zap and was touching paintings, apparently to work mojo on their subjects. When Skank returned to the hotel, a conference with Peter (who'd just finished trying to strangle Lucius to death; Lucius was, by that point, completely batshit paranoid) revealed the identity of the man who'd introduced himself as Archbishop Klypse. This would be the Archbishop of Madness, human incarnation of the Urge of Paranoia. He/it had been trying to turn the party members against each other and generally drive them all insane. It occured to them that this Archbishop thing shouldn't have had to go through the Gallery to do it; part of it was the sheer paranoia that it would engender into anyone who went to check, but mostly it was because all the ghosts in the hotel were acting as a sort of interference field, so the Gallery was the only way the Urge of Paranoia could get to them. Which is why it started with the ghosts acting screwy; attempted possession by Urge-Wyrm bounced into ghosts instead of intended targets.
Only thing to do? Destroy the Gallery. Only person to do it, given that outward communication would probably be a bad idea at that point? Molly. So they tethered themselves to her spirit and let her go astral. Unfortunately, they forgot to stabilise her vitals first. Lucius realised a minute later and tried to get her vitals stable, but managed to do something wrong and fail at the ritual the first time, so it was five minutes (not counting the minute it took to twig that something was wrong) before she had her vitals restored to something resembling normal. Molly blew the Gallery. Went back to her body with Skank as the tether. And wound up being completely devoid of higher brain function due to oxygen starvation. Skank was not impressed. Fortunately, her Avatars, being rather unhappy with this state of events, started rebuilding things in her head, so she got better.
A couple of weeks passed. They healed up, freed their vehicles from the incredibly bloody deep snow ... and then Skank remembered to tell Lucius that the Euthanatos wing of the Gallery had been blocked by tentacular goo. Lucius tried to call things to get messages, but seagulls attacked him, squirrels laughed at him, puffballs wouldn't do anything for him, the household ghosts didn't actually possess the ability to leave and the next spirit he called was Gaiman!Death. So he was very specific: "I will call something that likes me and is willing to deliver my message!" He got a tortoise. He gave the tortoise his message. The tortoise, in the grip of winter torpor, crawled away very ... very ... slooooooowly.
Unfortunately, in the midst of all this, he'd botched a Spirit summons and had called up a poltergeist that proceeded to trash the kitchen. Attempts to remove it either failed or, after another Lucius botch, invited its friends. Finally, the poltergeists were exorcised, leaving a bloody mess in the kitchen, and Skank and Lucius had a food fight ... just to blow off steam, I guess. Skank then left Lucius to clean up the kitchen, and Lucius then proceeded to use Entropy to make the mess worse instead. This would have been fine ... if he hadn't accidentally caused rupture in an already weakened part of a gas main and started a gas leak in the kitchen. Then he tried to run for it, but Skank caught him, smelled the gas and measures were taken to fix the damage. When that was done, the plumbing blew up, flooding the entire house because of increased pressure in the water mains and old plumbing. Then, after Skank did a rather nifty bit of mojo to dry out the carpets and so forth, the electrics blew out. They were left at the end of their second week of dwelling in the Dockside Palace, replacing every light bulb in the building.
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guido_was_taken was talking about his girlfriend possibly joining Mage, if he could get across the idea that Mage is awesome, or something. This might be nice, though we are going to run out of room in the sitting room. Then again, it used to be dodgyhoodoo, weaselbitch, nadriel, cholten99, vampadvocate, markwelham and jeremiahtomasi, with occasional appearances by corone. That was nine people counting me, and with dodgyhoodoo, weaselbitch, nadriel, lokean, guido_was_taken and girlfriend, that's still only seven counting me. Then again, that was in a bigger sitting room. But there are the dining room chairs.
As for Hollow City, I am still stuck at Kaldi's. Argh.
And my holiday is nearly over. Boo.
After being woken up by Molly-cast of what she experienced in Box 'O Sensory Deprivation and Time-Fucky, most everyone went back to sleep if they could. Unfortunately, John was insulting the hotel wraiths ("They can't possibly hear us! They don't have ears!") and they tied him to the bed and tried to smother him. Then Peter walked in while Lucius was trying to pry the pillow off John's face and, because the ghost vanished before Peter got to activate his Spirit sight, it looked for all the world like Lucius was trying to smother John. This story got spread around and generally things went a bit to Hades.
The following morning, Lucius went downstairs to do sword kata in the lobby, but of course Molly was in there, freaked out at the sight of fast-moving cutlery and Lucius vacated to the dining room upstairs. When Skank heard Molly scream, eventually got downstairs and found Molly missing. She was found curled up in the cellar with a stab wound to the chest. Everyone pinned it on Lucius because not only did they know about the smothering incident, but Lucius had admitted the smothering incident (albeit without all due seriousness) and also had to admit to psychotic episodes when he didn't remember causing all sorts of grievous harm to someone. Matters were complicated by the fact that Lucius had been using Romulus' katana at the time, probably due to kleptomaniac ghosts. The suspects were essentially Lucius, ghosts or Remus through the twin-bond deal he has going with Romulus. Then, of course, there was the problem that Lucius got possessed by something and wound up stabbing John in the back with his katana and then trying to follow through with wakizashi-inflicted beheading. He got stopped by Skank and Peter, thankfully, and then they hog-tied Lucius and insisted that no one do anything alone. This got scuppered by Peter and Skank having to go off and collect Romulus, Michelle going to check on Molly and John being possessed to just the degree of slapping Lucius repeatedly in the face, which was partially written off as revenge for the stabbing but it did occur to people that they knew nothing about this John Grey character or his abilities. Oddly, the only person who was really exempt from suspicion at this point was Colum, because he was snowed in, trapped in the Battle Bus.
So Skank went to check on people at the Gallery. The Gallery, as he found when he brought a torch into the place, was covered with slime and very, very dark. The Euthanatos corridor was blocked by tentacular yick, the Akashic wing was clean but obviously unused (and most of the Akashics appeared to be off-plane), what he could see of the Cult of Ecstasy wing was larger than it should have been given that there are only two left, and in the cabal's personal wing of the gallery was a short, pudgy, bald, crazed-eyed monk person who didn't flinch at Forces-zap and was touching paintings, apparently to work mojo on their subjects. When Skank returned to the hotel, a conference with Peter (who'd just finished trying to strangle Lucius to death; Lucius was, by that point, completely batshit paranoid) revealed the identity of the man who'd introduced himself as Archbishop Klypse. This would be the Archbishop of Madness, human incarnation of the Urge of Paranoia. He/it had been trying to turn the party members against each other and generally drive them all insane. It occured to them that this Archbishop thing shouldn't have had to go through the Gallery to do it; part of it was the sheer paranoia that it would engender into anyone who went to check, but mostly it was because all the ghosts in the hotel were acting as a sort of interference field, so the Gallery was the only way the Urge of Paranoia could get to them. Which is why it started with the ghosts acting screwy; attempted possession by Urge-Wyrm bounced into ghosts instead of intended targets.
Only thing to do? Destroy the Gallery. Only person to do it, given that outward communication would probably be a bad idea at that point? Molly. So they tethered themselves to her spirit and let her go astral. Unfortunately, they forgot to stabilise her vitals first. Lucius realised a minute later and tried to get her vitals stable, but managed to do something wrong and fail at the ritual the first time, so it was five minutes (not counting the minute it took to twig that something was wrong) before she had her vitals restored to something resembling normal. Molly blew the Gallery. Went back to her body with Skank as the tether. And wound up being completely devoid of higher brain function due to oxygen starvation. Skank was not impressed. Fortunately, her Avatars, being rather unhappy with this state of events, started rebuilding things in her head, so she got better.
A couple of weeks passed. They healed up, freed their vehicles from the incredibly bloody deep snow ... and then Skank remembered to tell Lucius that the Euthanatos wing of the Gallery had been blocked by tentacular goo. Lucius tried to call things to get messages, but seagulls attacked him, squirrels laughed at him, puffballs wouldn't do anything for him, the household ghosts didn't actually possess the ability to leave and the next spirit he called was Gaiman!Death. So he was very specific: "I will call something that likes me and is willing to deliver my message!" He got a tortoise. He gave the tortoise his message. The tortoise, in the grip of winter torpor, crawled away very ... very ... slooooooowly.
Unfortunately, in the midst of all this, he'd botched a Spirit summons and had called up a poltergeist that proceeded to trash the kitchen. Attempts to remove it either failed or, after another Lucius botch, invited its friends. Finally, the poltergeists were exorcised, leaving a bloody mess in the kitchen, and Skank and Lucius had a food fight ... just to blow off steam, I guess. Skank then left Lucius to clean up the kitchen, and Lucius then proceeded to use Entropy to make the mess worse instead. This would have been fine ... if he hadn't accidentally caused rupture in an already weakened part of a gas main and started a gas leak in the kitchen. Then he tried to run for it, but Skank caught him, smelled the gas and measures were taken to fix the damage. When that was done, the plumbing blew up, flooding the entire house because of increased pressure in the water mains and old plumbing. Then, after Skank did a rather nifty bit of mojo to dry out the carpets and so forth, the electrics blew out. They were left at the end of their second week of dwelling in the Dockside Palace, replacing every light bulb in the building.
guido_was_taken was talking about his girlfriend possibly joining Mage, if he could get across the idea that Mage is awesome, or something. This might be nice, though we are going to run out of room in the sitting room. Then again, it used to be dodgyhoodoo, weaselbitch, nadriel, cholten99, vampadvocate, markwelham and jeremiahtomasi, with occasional appearances by corone. That was nine people counting me, and with dodgyhoodoo, weaselbitch, nadriel, lokean, guido_was_taken and girlfriend, that's still only seven counting me. Then again, that was in a bigger sitting room. But there are the dining room chairs.As for Hollow City, I am still stuck at Kaldi's. Argh.
And my holiday is nearly over. Boo.